Abel Tasman National Park

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If you come to a fork in the road.....take it

Yogi Berra

New Zealand has 7 great walks that are known around the world to anyone who enjoys hiking (which is actually called "tramping" here). While, they are called walks, this term is quite misleading. They are grueling hikes that go over and around actual mountains. We started off in the North West side of the Southern Island and did a 50 km walk over 3 days called the Abel Tasman Great Walk. We had to buy our own cooking sets and pots and pans etc...The first days walk was supposed to be pretty short and we made it to within 20 minutes of our hut before things went terribly down hill. We had been walking for only about 4 hours and the day had been absolutely gorgeous. Words cannot do justice to how spectacular the views and landscape are/is. We stopped at the most remote beach that had the most spectacular aqua green color water, that we had to go for a swim...which lasted about 3 seconds since the water was still so cold. Anyways, we got to where we could see our hut, however the tide was in and we would have had to wait for another 2.5 hrs before it would recede, so we decided to take the path less travelled. We had noticed a fork in the road about 2 km's back that would take us around the bay to our hut. So we backtracked and followed that, going thru the bush and jumping over about 10 rivers (Matt ended up just walking thru them). Then after about 2 hours we came out to a road that we began to follow, this road was flooded in quite a few spots and we also had no map on us...(sidenote: take maps when you go into the bush, they're not lying when they say it could save your life)....So, we're walking around aimlessly, when we look up in the sky and from the other side of the mountain, these dark black clouds begin to roll in....we kept walking down the road, but much like those who attempt to climb Everest, we had set a turnaround time to ensure survival (on a much less extreme level obviously)....So we turned around and had to sprint the whole way back down a dangerous and slippery track, as we were not only running from the thunderstorms, we were running out of light and we also had to make it back to our original spot in order to beat the tide before it came back in. We sprinted with our packs all the way back and the tide was already starting to come back in. We had to take off our shoes and wade up to our thighs in damn cold water and finally stumbled into the cabin...made some dinner and then mingled with the 10 other people that were already there. The coolest part about doing these types of treks is meeting the people from all over the world in the cabins. There were 2 people from England, 2 from Holland, 1 from Germany, 1 from U.S.A, 1 from South Korea and 2 from Israel, all getting along and laughing together, for in the bush, its not about where you're from, but rather where you are.
I will post some great shots when I get a chance in the next few days (internet cafe here is $6/hour). We finished the track 2 days later without any drastic problems, aside from a limping walk like we had just spent a night in Cell block D at the Kingston Pen.

After the trek, we continued on with the MAgic Bus....which I am no longer a big fan of. The people on it haven't been all that friendly, and one specific group of English girls are undoubtedly the most annoying and snobbiest girls I have ever met.
We did stop to do a Microbrewery tour which was quite fun and the tourguide left us all alone in the bar where we got to sample (chug) as many of the different beers as quickly as possible before they came back...we were drinking, while the English girls were posing behind the bar pretending to pour themselves pints....the only problem, was that they weren't even holding glasses...ughhh. After this, we had a bus take us down to the local pub for a bbq and they also had a massive projector screen and were showing the New Zealand team playing a game of Rugby...it was an atmosphere much like that of a pub in Toronto on a Saturday night watching the Leafs game. We were talking to this one guy (who looked identical to Bart) most of the night who was really cool and was explaining all the rule to the different types of Rugby to us. By around 1am we decided to take off as we had to catch our bus the next morning @ 7am and he said cool and went to grab two more pints....(probably the last thing he needed). The next morning, our bus rolled around the corner, and we had a new bus driver....none other than Rich, the guy we met the night before....I suggested a breathalizer before we got off....and he said it was mostly straight roads...(which is an oxymoron in NZ)...every turn is like a hairpin at the Molson Indy...with far more tragic results should you make a mistake. I'm not sure what the point this story is...so I'll just cut it off here.

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Comments

[Uncle Dave]

Sounds like you are having a real adventure
Hi Jeremy; I forgot about your blog but then would remember during the day when I was at work but would forget when I got home ... Just catching up on some of your adventures; overall it sounds like you are having a great experience. You must have heard by now that BC won the Grey Cup. It was a boring game and had a chance for some excitement but the Montreal back fumbled on the one and that was the end of it. It was a good tackle actually as the BC defender timed his catapult over the line at the perfect time and with precision accuracy hit the back just as he got the ball. Some big upsets in the NFL which is making the picks interesting. I am currently kicking your Dad's butt and would be yours also if you were in this year. Anyway continue with the adventure and I will write again soon.